A27050:451
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort…
A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiors, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort of diocesan churches, prelacy and government, which casteth out the primitive church-species, episcopacy, ministry and discipline and confoundeth the Christian world by corruption, usurpation, schism and persecution : meditated in the year 1640, when the et cætera oath was imposed : written 1671 and cast by : published 1680 by the importunity of our superiours, who demand the reasons of our nonconformity / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for Nevil Simmons, 1681
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
His first Preliminary Dissertation of Antichrist, of the Mystery of Iniquity and of Diotrephes, I will not be so needlessly tedious as to meddle with any further then to say that I will believe Dr. Hammond here, and in his Annot. on 2 Thes. 2. when I am fallen into so deep a sleep, as to dream, 1. That the famous Coming of Christ, and our gathering together to him, (which is a great Article of the Christian Faith) is but Titus his Destruction of Jerusalem; and that the reward promised to all that love his appearing, is meant to all that love the said Destruction of Jerusalem; 2. And that this Destruction was not to be called nigh, or at hand, which fell out so few Years after. 3. And that the Gentiles of remote Countries were so shaken in mind and moved about a Question of a few Years distance of the Destruction of the Jews, more than about Christ's coming to the Common Judgment. 4. And that the Gnostics were indeed such terrible Persecutors of the Church, (who were dispersed Subjects) when their Doctrine was but that they might dissemble to escape Persecution themselves; and greater Persecutions were near? and not the Gnostics, nor Jews, but Nero beheaded Paul; and the Jews themselves were banished Rome? 5. And that Simon Magus was indeed so famous a Fellow, as to be taken for the supreme God, when Church Writers speak so uncertainly of his conflicts with Peter as of a doubtful story, and the evidence is so obscure, and the Roman Histories say so little of him? He might as well have thought the Apostle would have made all that ado about James Naylor, if he had been then alive. 6. And that there were not many other Heretics as well as the Gnostics that troubled the Churches, if Epiphanius knew how to name them and describe them rightly, or Irenaeus before him, or John in Rev. 2. and 3. before them. 7. And that Simon Magus and his Heresy was a Mystery of Iniquity not revealed when Paul wrote the second Epistle to the Thessalonians. 8. And that many had not then followed him and fallen away to Heresy. 9. Or that by the Apostasy that must first come, is meant the Apostles separation from the Jews, and Moses's Law; As if ⟨p. 84⟩he had said, we will first separate, and that shall bring persecution on you, but till we do that, it is with-held. 10. Or that the said separation was not done by degrees, some before this, and some after. 11.